Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 15:35:32 05/03/02
Go up one level in this thread
On May 03, 2002 at 17:13:59, Slater Wold wrote: Slater, thanks, it's interesting. I've got some questions which perhaps other people or your lawyer can answer :) >1.) If Jeroen has *ever* gotten paid 1 penny from Rebel, the books are not his. > If Ed or Christophe have ever bought him dinner, given him any kind of reward >and/or compensation, he has NO legal claim to his books. This is a "for-hire" >copyright, and according to US and International copyright laws, if you are >compensated for something that recieves and/or is claimed under copyright laws, >the copyright is not that of the creator, rather the person who paid for the >work. I know nothing about these kind of things, but isn't this contrary to, for example, Christophe selling his program both to ChessBase and Rebel? i.e. if the book was developed originally without support from Rebel, doesn't he have the possibility to sell it's usage? >3.) Only the code that generates chess moves are protected under copyright. >Not the actual moves that it plays. Example: If I can get Crafty to play every >single move that Rebel 4.0 will play, at the same ply, same speed, with the same >PV, but can do it with at least 40% different code, I am not in violation of any >copyright laws. Is the 40% an arbitrary number? (I think this boilds down to what represents a derived work or something) >4.) Because the book is SOLD, it holds "free use". Is this the same as what is commonly called 'fair use'? >Example: Say I as a human, >were to study Jeroen's book for a year. Can he sue me because I play his >opening lines in a REAL OTB game? NO HE CANNOT. Not even if there comes a day >where I have Jeroen's entire tournament book in my head. Therefore, if I put >work into going through his books, and import them into my engine, there is no >copyright violation. Because I am using knowledge that is readily available to >ANYONE who has bought the program, and importing them based on what the program >I bought is telling me, I have every right as a paying customer to use the >knowledge given to me by this program. This puzzles me. If I put work into converting the books to Sjengs format, it isn't a copyright violation? Can I sell those 'new' books? (now _that_ would really be a perverted possibility) Are the annotations also considered knowledge that is readily available? >5.) It IS illegal to hack a computer program to extract ANY data that it would >never display on the screen. Therefore, if I obtained Jeroen's book by hacking >the program and/or book format, I would be in violation of SEVERAL laws. >Including copyright laws. I've got several questions about this one. a) I know this is true in the USA via the DMCA, but the DMCA is not valid in Europe (though something similar may be enacted before the end of this year). AFAIK, reverse-engineering might still be legal here. b) What is considered 'hacking the book format'? It displays the book moves on screen, so converting the book doesn't exactly seem to fit this. As I've already said before, I'm not going to copy the book, but there were several statements from Jeroen for which I doubt legal founding. It seems to be a concensus now that the book variations themselves aren't copyrightable. However, there is one claim that bothers me, and that is the one that I am not allowed to convert the book to a format that is more convenient for me to use. The Rebel copyright license seems to prohibit this, but I've got my questions as to the legality of that, considering that I never got to know the copyright license until after buying the program. Moreover, I think that converting the format of the book would be something that falls under fair use/free use, i.e. it is a right I acquired when buying the software that the license cannot take away from me. -- GCP
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